Wall Street drops sharply on Trump comments, recovers somewhat

U.S. stocks fell sharply early in the day on Friday after President Donald Trump denied reports of both the U.S. and China agreeing to concessions on tariffs.

The Dow Jones index and the Standard and Poor's 500, which had both rocketed to record highs a day earlier, ended up giving up part of those gains by the close on Friday.

"Let's not forget that in the past we have come so close to a trade agreement and at the last minute there has been a pullback"

NEW YORK, New York - U.S. stocks fell sharply early in the day on Friday after President Donald Trump denied reports of both the U.S. and China agreeing to concessions on tariffs.

The Dow Jones index and the Standard and Poor's 500, which had both rocketed to record highs a day earlier, ended up giving up part of those gains by the close on Friday.

"Let's not forget that in the past we have come so close to a trade agreement and at the last minute there has been a pullback," Michael Geraghty, capital market strategist at Cornerstone Capital Group in New York told the Reuters Thomson news agency Friday.

"The president is very set in his way and the Chinese have their viewpoint too, so it seems it's going to take a bit longer for the trade deal to be nailed down."

Tech stocks were not as affected due to strong price rises for Microsoft and Qualcomm.

Despite earlier, sharp falls, all the indices recovered to close with only modest losses.

The Dow Jones lost 47.35 points or 0.17% at 27,627.46.

The Standard and Poor's 500 fell just 0.89 of a point or 0.03% to 3,084.29.

The Nasdaq Composite gave up 12.31 points or 0.15% to close at 8,446.83 on Friday.

The U.S. dollar, which has rallied for most of the week, made its biggest gains on Friday. The euro was belted, finishing the day in New York around 1.1023. The British pound buckled to 1.2783.

The Japanese yen rose slightly to 109.15, but remained weak. The Swiss franc was friendless at 0.9975.

The Canadian dollar fell sharply to 1.3227. The Australian dollar declined to 0.6855. The New Zealand dollar was much softer, last trading at 0.6325.

UK and European markets fell on the Trump trade antics. The FTSE 100 declined by 0.63%. The German Dax was down 0.46%. The Paris-based CAC 40 lost 0.02%.